Convicted fraudster Bernard Madoff turned his investment firm into his personal “piggy bank,” spending millions in client money to bankroll shopping sprees, real estate purchases and country club memberships for his family and close friends.

Madoff siphoned money from his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, to purchase real estate for his sons, hand out loans to his brother and drop $6 million to buy two yachts, according to a bankruptcy court filing by Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Madoff Securities.

For decades “BLMIS was Bernie Madoff and Bernie Madoff was BLIMS, each the alter ego of the other,” Picard said in the filing.

Before he confessed to the fraud, not much was known about Madoff, who was described by many as an aloof, Oz-like character. His scheme -- one of the biggest in U.S. history, with losses likely in the tens of billions of dollars -- has remained one of the hardest to untangle.

Census records show Madoff’s grandparents came to the U.S. from Austria, Romania and Poland between 1900 and 1905. Madoff, his brother Peter and sister Sondra grew up in a modest three-bedroom brick house in Laurelton, a middle-class area of Queens, N.Y.

Friends say that in his younger days, he would talk about getting out of the area and making it big in Manhattan.

Madoff rose quickly through the ranks of the business world. He was chairman of Nasdaq, was appointed to industry panels by the Securities and Exchange Commission and had wealthy friends who helped him arrange staff charity softball games at Shea Stadium.

His suits were tailor-made at Kilgour, on Savile Row, in London.

He and wife Ruth spent time yachting in the South of France, staying at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes and vacationing in Monte Carlo.

He splurged. His family splurged. His friends splurged. And according to new court filings, much of it was bankrolled unknowingly by his investors.

The new documents give investigators and his victims a peek into the mind of Madoff and possibly provide clues to what led to the epic and inevitable implosion of his dynasty.

According to an affidavit by investigator and former FBI agent Michael Slattery Jr., Madoff placed relatives and even friends' family members on the company’s payroll -- including two boat captains and “servants.”

Madoff’s tight-knit clan, which included Ruth, Peter, sons Mark and Andrew, and a handful of friends, racked up $100,000 in charges in one month, according to an American Express statement.

The January 2008 corporate bill details how Ruth spent nearly $30,000 in 30 days, criss-crossing through Europe on a shopping spree -- charging $2,000 at Giorgio Armani and $1,237 at Jil Sander in Paris, dining two days later at Bar Shu in London for $213.

Calls to Ruth’s attorney Peter Chavkin for comment were not immediately returned.

Mark and Andrew, 45 and 43 respectively, also cashed in.

They used their corporate cards to travel to a luxury ski resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where the car rental alone was $1,110.

Back in New York, Andrew’s AmEx footprint shows him splurging at Per Se restaurant, an upscale hot spot where the waiters dress in Armani and the view is of Central Park. His dinner tally on Jan.18, 2008 came to $1,126. In addition to the gratuity included in the bill, records show he used his corporate card to add another $60 tip.

During that same month, big brother Mark spent $8,400 at the Esperanza Hotel, a luxury resort in Cabo San Lucas. At the SoHo restaurant Lure Fishbar in New York, he spent close to $700.

The bankruptcy trustee also alleges that Madoff loaned his son Mark $6.5 million from the company account at the same time he purchased a multimillion-dollar home in Nantucket in June 2008.

Other extravagances include a $9 million dollar loan to Peter Madoff and fees to four different country clubs totaling $947,703.

Calls to Mark and Andrew’s lawyer were not immediately returned.

In the brief filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, David Sheehan, a lawyer for Picard maintains Madoff used “other people’s money, for his personal use and the benefit of his inner circle. Plain and simple: he stole it.”

In March, Madoff was sent to a federal prison in lower Manhattan. Known now as inmate #61727-054, he awaits his sentencing hearing on June 16. He faces a sentence of up to 150 years behind bars.